ON THIS DAY: 3 November, 1885 – U.S. Patent No. 329,495 was granted for the Safety Burial Casket, invented by Charles Sieber and Frederick H. Borntraeger of Waterloo, Monroe County, Illinois.
In the nineteenth century, a widespread fear gripped the public imagination – that of being buried alive. This anxiety, known as tapephobia, was fueled by sensational stories in newspapers and literature. Edgar Allan Poe’s chilling tale ‘The Premature Burial’ only deepened the dread.
The fear wasn’t entirely unfounded. In their 1896 book Premature Burial and How It Can Be Prevented, William Tebb and Colonel Edward P. Vollum documented 161 cases of premature burial as fact. They argued that conditions like trance, catalepsy, and other forms of suspended animation often made it difficult to distinguish the living from the dead. As Colonel Vollum, M.D., warned: ‘So long as men are hurried to the grave on the certificate of attendants who are ignorant of the phenomena of suspended animation, the danger will remain.’
In response to such fears, Sieber and Borntraeger created their Safety Burial Casket – an elaborate life-preserving and alarm system designed to protect anyone who might awaken underground.
Their invention included:
- A vertical tube extending from the coffin to the surface, allowing rescuers to look down or insert devices.
- A clockwork-driven fan connected to a cord in the occupant’s hand; if the person moved, the fan activated to pump fresh air into the coffin.
- A lamp and reflector in the tube so observers could see the occupant’s face.
- A spring-loaded signal, topped with feathers or a plate, that would rise visibly above ground if triggered by movement.
- An electrical alarm system – a thumb ring connected to a battery circuit – which sounded an alarm when contact was made by the occupant’s motion.
- Automatic seals and valves to close openings and keep dirt out after rescue or when the system was not in use.
The historian Jan Bondeson has estimated that, between 1790 and 1900, more than 200 distinct ‘safety coffin’ designs were patented worldwide. How many were actually purchased remains uncertain. But the fear was real enough that even Hans Christian Andersen and George Washington left explicit instructions to delay their burials for several days – just to be sure they were truly gone.
The Safety Burial Casket is a haunting reminder that, sometimes, innovation is born from our deepest fears.